Where did the term 'walking on pins and needles' originate, as well as other like psychology cliches?

Question

Or stonewalling, and walking on eggshells?

Answer 1

While "pins and needles" is useful in general medicine to denote a sensory condition arising per lack of circulation, the folk wisdom "walking on pins and needles" is known to express the "wake up and smell the coffee" event wherewith someone has "fallen asleep at the postural switch" and must "get a move on."

Walter Brennan's grandpappy Amos McCoy's a-hoppin' in 1950s tv's "The Rifleman" is a semi-comedic exemplification of the uncomfortable sensation and condition of "walking on pins and needles."

"Stonewalling" is a metaphor which reflects "body armor" and "putting up a strong resistance" to verbal blandishment.

"Walking on eggshells" is another poetic metaphor which retains its efficacy as it imports a very difficult physical act, applying more to social, emotional circumstances.

To answer your general question, such metaphors arise in the creative nexus of human needs and experience. Their useful life is first highly expressive (current "in" jargon, e.g. of a generational sort), then more widely applied, then cliche-ish. However, their intrinsic value relates, as does most poetry, to the emotional affect found and applicable; i.e., in an academic sense, "walking on eggshells" is an abstract cliche; for a "real life" e-motion, energy-in-motion, it may be very expressive of one's actual surround, e.g. for an academic defending his/her thesis before a politically-hostile examining board :)

You might enjoy works such as "Expecting Adam," Martha Beck, Ph.D., which brings forth new modern metaphors, in a quite profound and moving way, and A. Roger Ekirch's "At Day's Close," which gives a window into how people lived only a century or more ago. Many of our "fossilized" expressions have meaningful roots in such times, as well as differing in-tellings, intelligence (e.g., the expression "a hare and a dog" would elicit "a hunt" in 1900, and "mammals" in 2000--the latter more abstract, and less functional in one sense).

You might also enjoy "Hope for the World: Spiritual Galvanoplasty," O. M. Aivanhov, "Climb the Highest Mountain," Mark Prophet, "The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce?", Free and Wilcock, "Psychenergetic Science," Dr. William Tiller, http://www.tiller.org and "Extraordinary Knowing," Dr. Elizabeth Mayer.

cordially,

j.

Answer 2

Sitting On Pins And Needles

Answer 3

Waiting On Pins And Needles

Answer 4

There is no saying 'walking on pins and needles'!

Answer 5

Yes.

Answer 6

pins and needles:

popular name for a pricking or tingling sensation, as that which accompanies the recovery of feeling in a limb after numbness. on pins and needles: in a state of excessive uneasiness. [Example, first printed use:]

1810 J. POOLE Hamlet Travestie 8 Would it were supper-time... Till then I'm sitting upon pins and needles."

http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/41/messages/106.html

Nervously anxious, as in He was on pins and needles, waiting for the test results. The graphic expression pins and needles for the tingling sensation experienced in recovering from numbness was transferred to a feeling of marked mental uneasiness about 1800.

http://www.answers.com/On%20pins%20and%20needles

A tingling sensation felt in a part of the body numbed from lack of circulation.

idiom: on pins and needles

1. In a state of tense anticipation.

Meaning #1: a sharp tingling sensation from lack of circulation

Paresthesia or paraesthesia (in British English) is a sensation of tingling, pricking, or numbness of a person's skin with no apparent long-term physical effect, more generally known as the feeling of pins and needles or of a limb being "asleep".

Transient occurrence

Transient paresthesia is the temporary sensation of tingling, pricking, or numbness of the skin -- "pins and needles." It is usually felt in the extremities (hands, arms, legs, or feet), but can also occur in other parts of the body. This temporary sensation is usually caused by inadvertent pressure placed on a superficial nerve. The sensation gradually goes away once the pressure is relieved.

http://www.answers.com/topic/paresthesia-1

Date: 1813
: a pricking tingling sensation in a limb growing numb or recovering from numbness
— on pins and needles : in a nervous or jumpy state of anticipation

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=on+pins+and+needles

1. a tingly, prickly sensation in a limb that is recovering from numbness.
—Idiom2. on pins and needles, in a state of nervous anticipation: The father-to-be was on pins and needles.

[Origin: 1800–10]

pl.n. A tingling sensation felt in a part of the body numbed from lack of circulation.

In a state of anxiety or tense expectation: “Jackie was on pins and needles waiting to hear about her job application.”
(Idioms)

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=on+pins+and+needles&r=66

http://www.bartleby.com/59/4/onpinsandnee.html

You are "on pins and needles" when you are very nervous about something happening. Example: "There had been a rumor that someone was going to get fired, but we didn't know who it would be; so the whole office was on pins on needles all day." You are "on pins and needles" when you feel as if you were walking with pins and needles "on" the floor beneath your feet; if you made one wrong step you might get stuck painfully by the pins and needles! Example: "Dad is doing the taxes today and it has him in such a bad mood that our whole family is on pins and needles." When you are "on pins and needles" you feel nervous or worried that something bad might happen. Example: "Jean was on pins and needles the whole time her father was in the hospital."

http://www.goenglish.com/OnPinsAndNeedles.asp

The implication is that you’re in a state of nervous anticipation, unable to settle, as though you were sitting on a bed of nails.

There are actually two expressions involving pins and needles. The other describes the tingling sensation in arm or leg that appears when an arm or leg is recovering from numbness. The entries in the Oxford English Dictionary suggest that both are of similar date: yours is recorded slightly earlier, turning up first in 1810, but the other is known from 1813, which is a dead heat in etymological terms.

Both phrases are figurative expressions that imaginatively describe the phenomena involved.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-onp1.htm

Answer 7

Sorry, I have no Idea